On 10th October 2013, a jury in San Francisco acquitted former AU Optronics executive Richard Bai of criminal price fixing charges. After a two-and-a-half week trial in the Northern District of California, the jury reached its verdict after just over a day’s deliberation.
In 2009, the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division indicted Mr Bai and five other AU Optronics executives for allegedly conspiring with LG, Samsung, Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Chunghwa Picture Tubes to fix and stablilise the price of LCD panels to customers such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple. As reported here on 30th April 2013 (see below blog post), AU Optronics executive Shiu Lung Leung was sentenced in California to two years imprisonment and a fine of $50,000 for his involvement in a criminal conspiracy to fix the prices of liquid crystal displays used in computer screens and televisions.
Against Bai, a former head of the company’s Notebook Sales division, the Department of Justice alleged that he had implemented the price fixing conspiracy through his own conduct and by directing his subordinates to co-ordinate pricing with competitors. Prosecutors further alleged that Bai had acted as the company’s point of contact for co-conspirators seeking to fix the price of screens for notebook computers.
Persuaded by Bai’s legal representatives Shearman & Sterling and trial lawyer Brian Getz, the jury rejected the Department of Justice’s allegations, concluding that, although Bai took part in a meeting with LCD rivals, there was insufficient evidence that he conspired at those meetings. Getz commented that “No-one who came to testify could say that they price-fixed with him. They admitted that they colluded with executives above him, but not with Bai himself, and I think this is what swayed the jury.”
